


Achernar

by breepers_creepers



Series: Asterism [16]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Ectoplasm, Lodestar AU, ghost weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22087048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breepers_creepers/pseuds/breepers_creepers
Summary: Jack and Maddie shoot their son.
Series: Asterism [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586794
Kudos: 39





	Achernar

Maddie knew something was up with her daughter. They might not have seen each other a lot lately, but Maddie knew Jazz's mannerisms. Jazz was a lot happier this week than she had been in two months. In fact, she almost seemed happier than before. It was odd, because Maddie knew she had been mourning Danny, even if she didn't show it the same way as her parents.

Something was up with her. The only problem was, Maddie had no idea what it was.

"Do you think she could be possessed?" Jack had suggested when she brought it up. "There have been so many ghosts around. We might have missed one."

"A ghost willingly hiding in the home of ghost hunters, though?" Maddie had asked. "It would have to be either really dumb or really brave."

"Yeah, it's almost unthinkable, but that's why it's the perfect hiding spot! Think about it, Mads, what else could it be?"

Almost anything, Maddie thought, but Jack had already latched onto the idea, so she agreed to help him test Jazz for symptoms of possession.

They waited until that evening, when Jazz got home from tutoring at the school. They pretended to be busy a while longer, not wanting to alarm her, but eventually they crept up the stairs, ghost weapons and exorcising machine in hand. They stopped outside her door and began to silently count down, when they heard something odd.

Jazz was talking to someone. "Okay so now you carry that. No, the other one."

Another voice mumbled something back, too quiet for Maddie to make out the words.

"Yes, good. Now add that number."

The voice responded again, still unintelligible, but recognizable by it tone as irritated. Did Jazz have a boy in there?

"No, you're not getting out of this. You may be dead, but you still need to know math to make it in the world."

Maddie's heart skipped a beat. Jazz was teaching _math_ to a _ghost?_ Without another second, she and Jack burst through the door, weapons raised.

Jazz and the ghost screamed.

Maddie aimed at the spectral being, already fading into invisibility, and pulled the trigger.

"Mom, no!" Jazz shouted, ramming into her just as the weapon fired.

Instead of blowing straight through the ghost's head, the blast grazed it's shoulder. It shrieked and disappeared with a flash of green energy, leaving behind only a few drops of ectoplasm.

Jack tried to grab Jazz, to move her out of the room, but she fought back. She elbowed her dad in the diaphragm, and when he dropped her she ran to Maddie.

"How could you?" She shouted. Maddie had never seen her look so betrayed. "He was afraid of this, you know! Every time he visited he would mention the possibility that this might happen, and each time I told him it wouldn't!"

"Jazz," Maddie tried to reason with her normally rational daughter. "It was a ghost, of course we -"

"He's your son!" Jazz screamed.

Everyone fell silent. The only sound in the room was Jack's quiet wheezing. Maddie suddenly envied his ability - however impaired it was at the moment - to breathe. She didn't feel she could get her lungs to start working again. "What?" She whispered.

Jazz met her eyes defiantly. "That was Danny. Your son. And you just shot him."

"Danny's a ghost?" Jack wheezed, just as confused and startled as Maddie felt.

"Obviously. He's been visiting me nearly every day this past week. I was trying to prove to him that he could still trust us, and then you go and do this! We'll be lucky if we ever see him again!"

Maddie looked down at the floor, feeling dizzy. It was covered in textbooks and loose-leaf papers. Algebra equations were scribbled on them in Danny's chicken scratch script and Jazz's delicate bubble letters. They had been halfway through the last equation when they were interrupted.

Maddie's eyes were drawn to a spot of green on one of the papers. Danny's blood. Her son was bleeding because she had shot him. She had shot Danny. She felt like she was going to throw up or faint, and she didn't know which she would prefer.

"No," Jack said. "That can't be Danny. Ghosts are... They're evil?"

"No, they're not. Not all of them." Jazz replied angrily. "Not Danny. And that _was_ him. And now we'll probably never see him again, thanks to you two."

Maddie threw up.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, originally there was an 'almost' in the title, but the story kinda ran away from me.


End file.
